A little while back I was looking at an old picture my mother took of me and my best friend at the time Michael. We were about seven years old sitting on the front porch of my house. Very happy and smiling.
Shortly after looking at that picture I looked him up on Facebook. I found him, he only lives about an hour and a half from me. We talked briefly through messaging. After finding out how wonderful his life turned out with, I think it was three kids, president of a large company. He implied he couldn’t have a more perfect kind of life. Needless to say, I didn’t continue the conversation much longer and we didn’t talk again after that. I really had nothing to add to the conversation.
There was someone else I wanted to look up and that was Susan, she was in my class in elementary school and lived on the same street I did. I found her also on FB and contacted her. Well the conversation through messaging was nice I found out she only lived about ten minutes from me and she did want to get together to catch up. After learning about the two children she had I knew this wouldn’t workout.
I did ask her about my cousin Nancy who I used to be good friends with. She had her phone number and gave it to me. I texted her and one of the first things she said was that her son just celebrated his eighteenth birthday.
I repeated this a few times looking up childhood friends. Every time it ended the same way. I didn’t even have to contact them; I just saw in their profile that they had children. The first two I looked up on FB must have had photos blocked so only friend could see them.
The depression I was in after all that was intense. I keep thinking that I must be the only one that does not have any kids. Why was I singled out? It was a very alone feeling, and I could not get them out of my head. Everyone I grew up with had children.
My wife has two from a former marriage (that in itself is a whole other set of issues with me at times). One day recently she was talking about the man that lives across the street from us, he just moved in recently. She said she was curious about the woman that comes over and sometimes she comes with a young boy, he’s maybe around eight years old. She said she was thinking, is that his wife or ex-wife or was that his daughter. Was the boy his son or his grandson. I got pretty upset and I asked her why she was so concerned about that man’s legacy.
For some reason I was wrong asking that question. We went back and forth a few times and she ended up saying to me, ”what else is there to talk about”? Meaning how he procreated. That does seem to be the main topic with people. It seems to be what everyone wants to know. If someone has kids and how many. Oh, you only have one, I have three. Anyway, that even got me more upset. I didn’t say anything else because I knew I wasn’t going to win.
It just festered in my mind. It’s true people always want to know if someone has kids and how many. Someone at work said to me “how many children do you have?” He didn’t even first ask if I had any children. When I told him, I didn’t have any he said not everyone was meant to have kids. Needless to say, I went off on him in a bad way. I never yelled so load in my life. Later on, I apologized to another coworker that was there at the time.
There is no one around me that even wants to know how I feel. As long as I’m quiet and don’t say anything everyone is ok.
My wife and I never talk about it. She says she cannot help me. I realized a long time ago that I cannot talk to her about the things I feel. It never works out. I always seem to be in trouble for voicing my feelings. Which I don’t completely understand because she really is a caring compassionate woman. I have seen her do amazing things when she is talking to someone who is having serious troubles. A very feeling person. It’s so sad to feel so close to someone and so alone and separated at the same time.
I love everyone here and I know we will get through this together. God bless the people that started and admin of all these CNBC groups.
Ken Fenton